Philonica et Neotestamentica Blog

Please do go to
Philonica et Neotestamentica,
a blog on both Philo of Alexandria and the New Testament,
and update your bookmarks too.

Yes, this is the end....

This decision is final!
This blog has come to its end in the present form.
But the focus of its postings will be continued over at
Philonica et Neotestamentica Blog. Please pay it a visit!

After a long time of messing around and thinking about what to do with my blogs, I hope I have finally settled down for an acceptable solution: Philonica et Neotestamentica blog represents a merging of my former Philo of Alexandria Blog as well as of my former Research Notes on 1 Peter blog, and its focus will be heavily on Philo of Alexandria, but also on New Testament issues.

It is also associated with my Resource Pages for Biblical Studies, and as such serve as a place where I can announce updates and other info related to my Resource Pages.

Please subscribe to this blog, by using for instance Bloglines.com

Some people has asked me not to delete the present blog yet, as they may still want to search for and be in need of some information contained in it.

I have no intention of deleting it in the near future, but by the end of the year it will probably be gone.

The END

I have finally made up my mind; this blog has come to its end. Visitors will have realized that postings have been rather few in the last months, in fact even in the last year, and now it's over.

I have simply come to realize that I don't have enough spare time to be a blogger on Philo anymore. I will continue to read and write about Philo, but no more blogging here.

Thanks to those of you have visited this blog, and maybe even subscribed to it via Bloglines.

Info related to the Resource Pages for Biblical studies will be posted on the RPBS Blog: please go to RPBS Blog.

RPBS Blog

I intend to update my Resource Pages for Biblical Studies, and as an info page for these pages, this infoblog is established: RPBS Blog

Philo on Iphone

Last year I got a Palm, and soon was able to install both the New Testament in Greek, and Philo and Jospehus in both English and Greek. But Palm is getting outdated, I soon had to realize that...
Now I have been a fan of Iphone, and have found several Bibles available in English, and Greek NT and the Hebrew Bible seems to be coming.
But what about Philo? I would really hope that James Darlack woul be able to convert the works of Philo into Iphone as he did with Philo for Palm.

N E T S is available

A New English Translation of the Septuagint
Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright
Oxford University Press,
ISBN 13: 9780195289756ISBN10: 0195289757 hardback,
Oct 2007, Price: $30.00

arrived on my desk a couple of weeks ago. I mentioned it for my OT colleague, and as the kind person I am,.... when he asked to borrow it for a few days, he were allowed to get it, and there it served on his desk for the next week. That should indicate he found it interesting.

This volume is the result of a working group of scholars who have done us a great service in providing this translation. You can read more about their work on the NETS website. There you will also find that the translation is, in fact, available for free in form of .pdf files, ready for downloading. But I would strongly recommend you rather buy this real book edition.

On the NETS website you will also find a presentations of the translation principles applied. I found the following very interesting and useful when using this volume: Article. 7. Since much of the Septuagint derives from the Hebrew Scriptures, it is important to reflect that dependence as consistently and comprehensively as possible for the English reader. For these reasons, NETS consciously attempts to employ the wording and approach of a standard modern English translation of the Hebrew Bible in situations in which the Greek understands the Hebrew text in the same way as the English. The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) has been chosen to provide this English base. Where the Greek does not correspond to the Hebrew as understood by the NRSV, translators will make every reasonable effort to represent the differences fully and accurately. In this way, even a reader not familiar with the Greek or Hebrew texts will be able to get a certain impression of the LXX may deviate from the Hebrew text (which is the vorlage for most Bibles).

I think this volume should be on the desk of every scholar studying Philo or the New Testament alongside studying the Greek text of the LXX themselves.

New book: Redemption and Resistance

T & T Clark is launching a new book that should be useful and interesting to students of Judaism and early ChristianityMarkus Bockmuehl & James Carleton Paget (eds.), Redemption and Resistance. The Messianic Hopes of Jews and Christians in Antiquity (T & T Clark International, 2008). Suggested publication date: May 2008.
Description
Redemption and Resistance brings together an eminent cast of contributors to provide a state-of-the-art discussion of Messianism as a topic of political and religious commitment and controversy. By surveying this motif over nearly a thousand years with the help of a focused historical and political searchlight, this volume is sure to break fresh ground. It will serve as an attractive contribution to the history of ancient Judaism and Christianity, of the complex and often problematic relationship between them, and of the conflicting loyalties their hopes for redemption created vis-à-vis a public order that was at first pagan and later Christian. Although each chapter is designed to stand on its own as an introduction to the topic at hand, the overall argument unfolds a coherent history. The first two parts, on pre-Christian Jewish and primitive Christian Messianism, set the stage by identifying two entities that in Part III are then addressed in the development of their explicit relationship in a Graeco-Roman world marked by violent persecution of Jewish and Christian hopes and loyalties. The story is then explored beyond the Constantinian turn and its abortive reversal under Julian, to the Christian Empire up to the rise of Islam.

You can see its List of Contents here.

To Peder Borgen on his 80th Birthday

At the end of this week our congratulations go to
Professor emeritus, Dr.theol., Peder Johan Borgen, PhD.,
as he passes his 80th birthday on January 26. 2008.

It is great to see that he is still active both as a family man, as a member of his local Metodist church, and as an international scholar. Last November he attended the SBL Annual Meeting in San Diego, and even participated in a session on the Gospel of John. His latest publication -so far- is to be found in the volume published in connection with that event:P. Borgen, 'The Scriptures and the Words and Works of Jesus,' Tom Thatcher (ed.), What We Have Heard From the Beginning. The Past, Present and Future of Johannine Studies (Waco, Texas, Baylor University Press, 2007), pp. 39-58. It is a great pleasure and joy to have him as a friend and DoktorVater, and we want him to stay with us for many more years to come.
Happy Birthday, Peder!


Readers may add their greetings below by using the comments field.
Click on 'Kommentarer', and write your message.

This picture was taken last fall when Inger and Peder Borgen celebrated their birthdays together; her birthday is in the early fall time, while Peder's is on January 26.
The persons from the left are: me, Peder Borgen, Per Jarle Bekken, and Kåre Fuglseth. All of us are former PhD-students of Peder Borgen from his time as professor at the Department of Religion at the University of Trondheim.

Alexandrian Personae

A very interesting conference on Alexandrian Personae is to be held at the University of North Carolina February 23-24, 2008.Alexandrian Personae
Scholarly Culture and Religious Traditions in Ancient Alexandria (1st ct. BCE—4th ct. CE) The conference is presented thus:The Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in collaboration with the Department of Theology at the University of Göttingen, will host a two-day conference on February 23-24, 2008, with contributions by an international group of scholars. The principal goal of this conference is to explore various forms of interaction between philosophy, textual exegesis, and religious discourses in late Hellenistic and Roman Alexandria (1st ct. BCE-3rd ct. CE), as they are reflected in the literary work, private records, and public activity of the following Alexandrian 'personae': (i) the Egyptian priest; (ii) the gymnasiarch; (iii) the magician; (iv) the astrologer; (v) the alchemist; (vi) the apocalyptic prophet; (vii) the philologist; (viii) the rhetorician; (ix) the antiquarian; (x) the physician; (xi) the Hermetist; (xii) the 'Gnostic'; (xiii) the Christian teacher; (xiv) the doxographer; (xv) the philosopher.The conference program is also available on their website, and here is the list of the various lectures to be held:Saturday, February 23, 2008
9:00 – 9:15 Welcome and Introduction
Zlatko PLEŠE (UNC-Chapel Hill)
Rainer HIRSCH- LUIPOLD (Göttingen)

9:15 – 10:00 Frederick BRENK (Rome) Alexandria and Egyptian Religion as Praeparatio Evangelica

10:00 – 10:45 Grant PARKER (Stanford) Missing Personae: The Alexander Romance,Its Author and Context

10:45 – 11:15 Coffee Break (Center for Global Initiatives)

11:15 – 12:00 Philip STADTER (UNC-Chapel Hill) Plutarch’s Alexandrias

12:15 – 1:45 Lunch (Place TBA)

2:00 – 2:45 Armin LANGE (Wien) Derveni-Qumran-Alexandria: Omen Interpretation, Philology, and Commentary

2:45 – 3:30 Troels ENGBERG PEDERSEN (København) Philo of Alexandria: A Typical
Alexandrian Persona

3:30 – 4:00 Ilinca TANASEANU-DÖBLER (Ohio State), Clement of Alexandria: a Christian Philosopher and Teacher

4:00 – 4:30 Coffee Break (Center for Global Initiatives)

4:30 – 5:15 Aurelio PÉREZ JIMÉNEZ (Malaga) The Horoscope of Alexandria

5:15 – 5:45 Zlatko PLEŠE (UNC-Chapel Hill) The Hermetist and His Socio-Intellectual Milieu

5:45 – 6:45 Break

7:00 – 8:00 Plenary Lecture
Heinrich VON STADEN (IAS-Princeton) Title TBA

8:00 – 9:30 Reception (Center for Global Initiatives)

Sunday, February 24, 2008

9:00 – 9:30 Rainer HIRSCH-LUIPOLD (Göttingen) God: An Alexandrian Persona?

9:30 – 10:00 Tobias THUM (Göttingen) An Alexandrian Philosopher? Plutarch’s Teacher Ammonius as Literary Character

10:00 – 10:30 Coffee break (Center for Global Initiatives)

10:30 – 11:15 Kevin CORRIGAN (Emory) The Shadow of Alexandria in the 4th Century:City and Desert

11:15 – 12:00 Catherine Chin (UC Davis) Rufinus of Aquileia and Alexandrian Afterlives

12:00 – 1:45 Lunch (Place TBA)

2:00 – 2:45 Elizabeth CLARK (Duke) ‘The Schleiermachers of Antiquity’: Alexandrian Theologians in the Nineteenth-Century Protestant Imaginary

2:45 – 3:30 Christopher ROBERTS (Reed) Antiquarians, Gravediggers, and the Old Age of Mankind: Nietzsche on Alexandrian Historical Culture

3:30 – 3:45 Coffee Break (Center for Global Initiatives)

3:45 – 4:30 Diskin CLAY (Duke) Cavafy’s Alexandria

4:30 – 5:00 CONCLUDING DISCUSSION


(Thanks to info on Mark Goodacre's Blog.)

The Septuagint in Philo

Benjamin G. Wright III, has an article on Philo and the Septuagint in
Wolfgang Kraus & R. Glenn Wooden (Eds), Septuagint Research: Issues and Challenges in the Study of the Greek Jewish Scriptures (Septuagint and Cognate Studies Series, No. 53.) Society of Biblical Literature, 2006.
See 'The Septuagint in Aristeas and Philo.' Pp. 47-62.

Further information of the volume as such can be found here: Amazon.com.

Revelation of the name JHWH

Review of Biblical Literature has a review (by Sabrina Inowlocki) of the following book that also contains an article on Philo:George H. van Kooten, editor, The Revelation of the Name YHWH to Moses: Perspectives from Judaism, the Pagan Graeco-Roman World, and Early Christianity Themes in Biblical Narrative: Jewish and Christian Traditions, 9; Leiden: Brill, 2006), pp. xiv + 264. $170.00. ClothThis edited volume is a collection of papers presented at the 2004 Themes in Biblical Narratives conference that took place at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Groningen from 26 to 27 July 2004.

Concerning the article on Philo (TS: I have not been able to find any List of Contents on the Internet), the reviewer says: "In the next contribution, Albert C. Geljon compares Philo’s treatment of Exod 3 with that of Gregory of Nyssa. This subject is well known to Geljon, since his doctoral dissertation dealt with Gregory’s use of Philo in his Vita Mosis. According to him, the main distinction between the two authors lies in the interpretation of Exod 3:14. For Philo, “He-who-is” refers exclusively to God, to whom the Logos is somehow subordinate, while in Gregory’s eyes, the Logos stands on the same level as God. The neo-Arian Eunomius, who follows Philo on this matter, is charged by Gregory with Judaism. Yet the latter does not refrain from using Philo, whose negative theology is similar to that found in Gregory."

Stranger in the Night,- or Light?

A snapshot from my cave of darkness and light in the basement of our apartment; a place of thinking, reading, writing, surfing, blogging.....

More on unicode fonts

David Instone-Brewer has a new and interesting posting on his Tyndale Tech Blog. This time it is about Unicode fonts for Biblical scholars who want to be able to write Hebrew and Greek in their works. If you are interested in this kind of stuff, you should subscribe to his blog.
Have also a look at the Biblical Studies and Technology Tools blog by an anonymous (why?) associate professor from Gettysburg,PA.

Philo and 'Zelos' - again.

In this posting I want to be as selfish as to deal with a topic that has engaged me for some time, i.e. the issue of 'zeal' (zelos), in the works of Philo and how he possibly considered it an impetus for measurements against transgressors of the Torah.Concerning my former works, see my book on Establishment Violence listed in the left frame of this blog; in addition, consider also 'Saul of Tarsus and Early Zealotism. Reading Gal 1.13-14 in Light of Philo's Writings,' Biblica 83 (2002):449-471; and (Re)Presentations of Violence in Philo of Alexandria. Paper read at the SBL Annual Meeting 2003. (Atlanta, Georgia). In my firstmentioned work, my dissertation, I argued that the primary texts investigated (Spec.leg. 1,54-57; 1,314-318 and 2,252-254) suggested that Philo did not here deal with theoretical laws, but with actual issues of the Law to be observed. However, I did not support the theory of E. R. Goodenough that his discussions were derived from his practice in Jewish courts in Alexandria. But Philo's pinpointing of "thousands of zealots for the Law", ready to take actions against culprits, were to be taken as indications of social issues, that is, as a scenario he considered to be part of the social situation in Alexandria at his time. Such actions, in light of the dominating jurisdiction in Alexandria, should be characterized as 'establishment violence' and 'vigilantism', that is, "acts or threats of coercion in violation of the formal boundaries of an established sociopolitical order, which, however, are intended by the violators to defend that order from some sort of subversion". My main conclusion to the question if Philo really supported establishment violence was phrased thus: "we have no sources available that provide evidence that Philo supported actual cases of establishment violence. But what we have are his expositions of cases of gross non-conformity to the Torah where he both draws upon traditions of the great OT hero Phinehas, and where he depicts the agents to carry out counter-measures as inflicting these quite independently of any decision of court. Hence his expositions dealt with . . . might very well be taken both then and now as evidence for an endorsing attitude to establishment violence" (p. 181).

My views have been variously received, but terms as 'establishment violence' end 'vigilantism' are now finding their way into studies of both Philo and of, e.g., the actions taken against Stephen in the Lucan Acts of the Apostles, a text also dealt with in my study.

Now, these issues have come up for discussions in two recent studies, one supporting my view, the other not.
The first one to be mentioned here, argues against my view: C. Batsch, La Guerre et les rites de guerre dans le judaïsme du deuxième Temple (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 93; Leiden Boston: Brill, 2005). His main arguments against my view, as far as I understand him, are that Philo's passages, in which he discusses these issues, are allegorical interpretations of the Phinehas episode. While there admittedly are several allegorical expositions of Phinehas in Philo's works, this can, in my view, hardly be said of the passages drawn upon from Specialibus Legibus (1,54-57; 1,314-318 and 2,252-254). Batsch is here not distinguishing between Philo's various expositions: when he says that "le terme est utilisé par Philon seulement dans des représentations allégoriques" (p. 158), he is certainly wrong. He is also arguing that the term 'zelos' is not used in the expositions of Phinehas; but this is also hardly defendable in light of Spec.leg 1,54-57. Thirdly, he argues that Philo does not support the vigilantes mentioned in the texts. When he presents the ideology of the zealots, Philo says that they 'nomisantas autous' etc. According to Batch, this description signals that Philo is distancing himself from them. But then Batsch fails to consider that Philo just before this expression in fact says that "it is well that all who have a zeal for virtue should be permitted to exact the penalties offhand and with no delay" (1,55).

The other recent study published is quite favorably to my view of Philo here: see K. Berthelot, “Zeal for God and Divine Law in Philo and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” The Studia Philonica Annual: Studies in Hellenistic Judaism 19 (2007) 113–29.
She strongly argues, that Philo is here presenting Phinehas as an example --indeed , the example of those who are zealous. Her conclusions are thus very similar to my own: " On a theoretical level, it is thus beyond doubt that Philo advocated the killing on the spot of Jews who publicly apostatized, committed idolatry or uttered blasphemy. His works probably testify to such a practice in his days, although not necessarily in Alexandria itself" (127). Furthermore, due to Philo's rhetoric, is is difficult to say "with any degree of certainty", "that, in a concrete situation, Philo would have gone so far as to advocate the killing of a Jew caught worshipping a foreign god or blaspheming. This issue must be left open, but one should not ignore the weight of the evidence contained in Philo's works themselves."

With this weighted conclusion, I would concur. We cannot predict how Philo himself would have reacted, but I still do think that Philo's own expositions indicate a living trajectory of interpretation of the influence of the Phinehas episode even in his time and his world.

Memories of Moses' Wives

Among the last items added to the Bookreview.org 's list of reviews is the following one that might be interesting for Philo scholars tooKaren Strand Winslow,
Early Jewish and Christian Memories of Moses' Wives: Exogamist Marriage and Ethnic Identity.
Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 66.
Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen, 2005. pp. iv + 493. Cloth
Reviewed by Amelia Devin Freedman.
See http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5726
Description by the publisher:
"This book “frames” the appearances of Moses’ wives in Israel’s story and in the interpretive literature of Jews and Christians. Their responses to the account of Zipporah and the Cushite in the Scriptures reveal their views on circumcision, exogamy, monogamy, and even chastity, for an exegetical motif emerged that Moses “withdrew” from his wife after he became a prophet for God.
Zipporah enters the script of Exodus as Moses’ wife, a foreign woman who performed the ritual that marked male Jews as God’s covenant partners and members of God’s people. Zipporah is one of three named circumcisers in the Jewish Scriptures, joining Abraham and Joshua. By circumcising her son, she made a way for the deliverance of Israel from the bondage of Egypt. Like Abraham, she took a knife to her son, not to slay him, but to save his – or his or his father’s – life. The Torah also mentions Moses’ marriage to a Cushite woman – another outsider, which the priestly and prophetic leadership of Israel – Miriam and Aaron – disparaged, but which the LORD affirmed. Like other outsiders in the Bible, Moses’ foreign wives are featured and celebrated to combat trends toward separatism and exclusivism that emerged among post-exilic Jews.
However, the early interpreters of the Scriptures were not concerned with the social dynamics of Persian period Yehud or the tensions between Second Temple scribes and redactors. Early Jews and Christian sages had their own agendas for Zipporah and the Cushite and used their stories to influence their constituencies regarding marriage, procreation and sexual renunciation, as well as circumcision and baptism. Thus, this project traces the exegetical trajectories of Jews and Christians along these lines."